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Product description

About the Author

Thomas Sowell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of dozens of books and the recipient of various awards, including the National Humanities Medal, Presented by the President of the United States in 2003.

Top customer reviews

Thomas Sowell is well known for his insightful and thought provoking articles and books. He was never the one to shy away from a difficult subject, and that is certainly the case with as polarizing topic as race and ethnicity. In American political discourse, race and ethnicity are given either too much attention or not enough, and the motivations for the attention given are oftentimes misguided. Between the polar extremes of nativists and cultural relativists, there is a considerable room for exploration that has not been given proper attention. Behind the myth of America as a melting pot, there lays the reality of many ethnic groups arriving here and staying loyal to their ethnic and cultural identities for many generations at a time. For instance, the rate of intermarriage for the first few generations of immigrants is pretty low.

Thomas Sowell is at his best when relating some peculiar historical fact about a particular ethnic group that more often than not hasn't made its way into the history books. He tries to be honest and fair to everyone, but he is not kowtowing to the PC rhetoric. The particular stories of different ethnic groups are enlightening and revealing of all sorts of different circumstances under which people have immigrated into the United States. However, it is not always clear when these stories are completely based on the historical evidence, and when they are just second or third hand accounts. Sometimes there is danger of painting the ethnic picture with too wide of a strokes.

The only big problem that I have with this book is that it tries to convey the impression that the only major differences between ethnic groups in America are due to Culture. This is one of the themes that Sowell returns to a lot in his writings. The positive effect of that outlook is the notion that with a change of cultural outlook all ethnic groups are equally likely to better themselves and succeed in America. However, this neglects the growing amount of evidence that points to the fact that our biological differences do play a significant role in how we behave. Neglecting that lesson can have very undesirable consequences.

Mr. Sowell's in depth study of immigrant groups to america (Irish, Chinese, German, Italian, Puerto Rican, Black, and others) is as entertaining as it is insightful. Mr. Sowell attributes America's love with athletics to the arrival of waves of Germans in the 19th century- and their fondness of sport. Each immigrant groups succcess is traced as well as their contributions to the defining of what it means to be American. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are not true immigrants but migrant workers, hence no improvement in their economic station. Blacks in America only moved out their rural condition in the South during World War II, and are making progress commensurate with immigrant groups after a generation. A great read and an enlightening study!

There are so many biased books/papers/articles/documentaries on this subject which take some pre-defined viewpoint and attempt to make some moral statement. This book is the only source of information I've ever seen which basically looks at why various ethnic groups behave the way they do, without assumptions, without guilt, without dogma, and without political correctness. This is the kind of book someone might write 500 years from now after the emotions have subsided on the subject.This book will show you a new way of thinking about race and culture in America, with many surprising facts and concepts.

Thomas Sowell's study of a few of the ethnic groups that make up the United States is a valuable contribution to discussions about race. He takes a number of ethnic groups and uses contemporary sources to see how they progressed over the period since they entered the United States. Individually each section is interesting and informative with fascinating anecdotes and statistics throughout. Seeing how some group traits remain in place over a period of decades or more and how some traits disappear as the groups integrate into the mainstream is

Whilst the general trend is of groups becoming more assimilated and more typical of the USA over time, different groups demonstrated different behaviours back in their countries of origin and these traits often persisted for decades or centuries after the groups were Americans. Thus even when groups lived next to each other in the USA the outcomes for each were very different on a variety of different measures, be it educational achievement, political success, crime rates and economic success.

Not all groups assimilate at the same rate or to the same extent however there are trends which are common among all groups. There are exceptions to this general pattern, the Mexicans for example haven't integrated as quickly as the European groups because of the proximity of Mexico to the USA lessens the imperative to integrate. Blacks were until the post-War era frequently prevented from integrating.

As with most of Sowell's books the analysis is logical and evidence based. This means that his analysis of immigration is neither alarmist nor pollyannaish. Most immigrant groups do integrate over time but there are real costs to be borne along the way.

The no nonsense writing style can make the book somewhat dry at times but that is a minor quibble.